


on gifts and miscommunication

by renyoi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Fluff, Klancemas 2020, M/M, klancemas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renyoi/pseuds/renyoi
Summary: Why had he kissed Lance’s cheek in the first place? Keith’s been sifting through that moment over and over in his head—increasingly fuzzily as the spiked eggnog had started hitting his system, to be sure—and, for the life of him, he just can’t figure it out. It had just been what he wanted to do—it had felt like the right thing to do, the right way to show his appreciation for Lance having done something so nice and special for him.Would he have done it if it hadn’t been Lance who gave him the gift, though? No, of course not. It was because it was Lance that Keith felt compelled to kiss his cheek—that he felt compelled to tackle him to the ground in a hug unlike anything he’s used to giving, so forward and presumptuous and just…just really showing his heart on his sleeve.Keith doesn’t do that. But with Lance, he does. And it has made things so, so fucking weird, that Keith is sure he never will again. //a compilation of three prompts for klancemas
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 60





	on gifts and miscommunication

**Author's Note:**

> the prompts were, in order, "holidays in space," "gift," and then "christmas." i thought it might be nice to combine them all into a single fic, since they all went together anyway. enjoy & happy holidays!

Lance and Keith had decided last night, in the midst of a join panic-session about how neither of them had bought Christmas presents yet (and Christmas is literally….well, _tomorrow_ ), that today was the day they’d make a trip to the Space Mall together and get that responsibility squared away. Miraculously, they’d actually followed through on this plan, and now Lance has Keith by the hand, leading him eagerly through the crowded shopping center towards what he swears is a place that sells only earth shit.

Yeah. Apparently, in the middle of space, in the middle of a gigantic mall, there’s a tiny store that sells old 80s-style gadgets and games from earth, and also maybe animals sometimes? Keith’s never been, obviously, but Lance swears this is where he got Kaltenecker, so Keith is giving him the benefit of the doubt and allowing himself to be led.

...Also, Lance’s hand is clasped tight around his, tugging him along, and it’s really warm and solid and Keith doesn’t ever really want to let go. However, he’s sorely disappointed, because the moment Lance stops in front of the store, he lets go of Keith to point excitedly. Sad.

“See! I told you!” Lance says, eyes shining as he looks up at it, and Keith shakes him out of the _Lance-McClain-just-held-my-hand-oh-my-god_ daze and, warily, follows where Lance is pointing.

And, well… _yeah._ It’s an earth store in the middle of space.

Keith actually takes a step forward just to see it better, he’s _so_ surprised that it even exists at all. Piled messily in the windows is a treasure trove of what seems to be exclusively ‘80s American memorabilia—NES consoles stacked on top of Transformer boxes, Cabbage Patch Kids jostling for space amongst piles and piles of home workout tapes, brightly colored sweaters, and Star Wars merchandise. It’s kind of _amazing_ , just how specifically crafted the theme of this store seems to be, but it’s also probably entirely unintentional; Keith can just barely see a couple of what look like weird space-versions of stables at the back of the store, housing a few chickens, some lizards, and one monkey.

What the _fuck_.

“Wow,” Keith says dumbly, still staring. Lance snickers beside him.

“I knew you’d like this place. Maybe we can get you some leg warmers to match your dumb jacket, here.”

Keith doesn’t even deign that comment with a response, just rolling his eyes and shoving at Lance lightly as he walks past him into the shop. To his credit, Lance follows with just an amused laugh, which does funny things to Keith’s stomach.

“Alright, walking-80s-caricature, where should we start?”

* * *

“Hey, do you think Allura would like this?” Keith asks loudly, calling Lance’s attention away from the Mario cartridge he’d been puzzling over for the better half of five minutes now. He starts a little but turns and, the second he catches sight of what Keith has in his hand, he bursts into laughter.

“Is that a _My Little Pony_?!” he wheezes, causing Keith to turn scarlet.

“I—Yeah! But she likes colorful cute things! Like her mice!” Keith stutters, indignantly defensive, and Lance actually drops the Mario cartridge and comes over to Keith and gives him a hug. Keith freezes.

“Man, you’re cute,” Lance says after he lets go, poking Keith once on the cheek. This does nothing to help Keith’s blushing embarrassment, which in fact only grows worse. Shaking his head, then, Lance adds, “Yeah, I think she’ll like it. Or at least be fascinated by it. We should totally act like this is just how horses look on earth.”

Keith snorts, still trying to recover from being called _cute_ , and places the little pink horse into his shopping bag, along with an Easy Bake Oven for Hunk, a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots game for Pidge, and a truly horrific pair of striped pink-and-blue leg warmers for Coran.

All he has left now is Shiro and…Lance. He’s not sure which one he’s more nervous about.

“Hey, Keith, c’mere,” Lance calls suddenly, and Keith turns around to find him standing in front of a tiny TV with what looks like a tiny square sitting amidst a large maze, whose green color contrasts sharply with the gray of the floor. _Wait a minute_ …

“Oh my god!” Keith exclaims, running over and eagerly picking up the joystick controller laying on the floor. “It’s _Adventure!_ My dad and I used to play this _constantly_ , and I—I never thought I’d see it again.”

“ _Adventure_?” Lance repeats confusedly, peering at the screen as Keith starts to navigate the little square avatar around the maze. “I’ve never even heard of that. What console is that, even?”

“ _Atari_ ,” Keith says distractedly, attention entirely zeroed in on his game, trying to remember the paths he and his dad had figured out and where each of the little keys he’s meant to be finding were hidden. It’s sending him on a bittersweet nostalgia trip, right now; he’d lost the console after his dad died, and with it, his copy of the game. It’s not a particularly rare commodity, but it’s also not one most people back on earth owned any more— _especially_ not once he got to the Garrison, where video games themselves were pretty much outlawed.

Playing this reminds Keith of late evenings after dinner, sitting down with his dad in front of their modest TV set and sorting through the puzzles together, shrieking when the tiny dragons appeared and one of them inevitably got the key stolen from them. It was a time when he felt most close to his dad, when it was just the both of them engaged in a project together for hours on end. It felt like home.

Keith hasn’t felt that in a while.

“…Hey, you okay?”

Keith starts out of his reverie to Lance’s voice. He realizes that he might’ve been putting on a pretty melancholic face, just then, while remembering his father, and he works to smooth out the expression and make it more neutral. Lance, however, doesn’t seem to be buying it, judging by the hard look he gives him when he tries.

“I’m fine, Lance.” Keith breaks away from the _Atari,_ setting down the controller and facing Lance instead. “Just a lot of memories for me.”

“Do you like the game, even?”

Keith pauses for a moment, thinking, and then admits, “Yeah, I do. I’m not here for that, though. We should keep shopping.”

As he walks away, mind back on gifts, he doesn’t notice Lance swooping down to grab both the cartridge and the console, slipping them into his jacket.

He’ll buy that later.

* * *

“ _An Easy-Bake Oven!!_ ”

Hunk’s face is so filled with joy that Keith can’t do anything but laugh bashfully and grin, happy that he’s actually gotten someone a gift that they liked, especially in these less-than-ideal circumstances. Hunk hugs the gift to his chest, humming happily, and then seems to remember who got it for him; a second later he’s on top of Keith, arms wrapped around him, nearly shouting his thanks in Keith’s ear. Keith colors red, because _cuteboyhugginghimerrorerrorerror_ , but finds the strength to weakly hug him back and give him a warm smile when he lets go.

“Thank you, Keith. You’re the _best_ ,” Hunk sings, settling back in his place within the circle they’re all sitting around in. Keith only nods, still feeling a bit dazed from all the physical contact, and doesn’t notice when Lance shoves at Hunk’s leg with his foot, throwing him a jealous glare.

“Alright, who’s next?” Allura claps her hands together, her little My Little Pony horse that Keith gave her sitting happily in her lap; Keith’s noticed that she brushes its hair out fondly from time to time, which makes him feel special.

In response to her question, Shiro picks up his final present, which happens to _also_ be Keith’s. Keith had decided to be a little cheeky with this one, so hopefully Shiro will still like it in spite of that. He probably will.

Delicately, Shiro tears the wrapping paper away from the gift to reveal a Power Rangers Megazord—or, as Keith likes to call it, Voltron Lite. His eyes light up and he starts laughing, shaking his head at Keith.

“Very funny,” he says, grinning, and Keith gives him a salute.

“Just for you, Leader,” he says mockingly. “Maybe this’ll help you plan our battles out better.”

“If someone makes me a battle-map, it definitely will!”

Keith knew Shiro would take this joke-gift well.

“I think it’s time for Keith to open a present,” Pidge declares, reaching past her Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robots (that she _has_ been playing with throughout this little venture, Keith would like to state) and pushing a gift wrapped in blue paper towards him, “since we’ve all opened ours from him.”

Keith accepts the gift with a shake of his head and instantly tears into it, not bothering to check who it’s from. He can do that later—

Wait a second. This is—

“Holy shit,” Keith says under his breath, holding the _Atari_ console up into the light as if to check whether or not it’s real. It _is_ , it’s not a weird, cheap replica, it’s a 1982 _Atari_ , right down to the three-pronged logo and orange highlights of color. That means there’s only one person who could have bought this gift for him.

“…Lance?”

Lance huffs out a laugh, raising his hand and waving. He’s not looking at Keith yet, though, when he says, “You’re missing something, idiot.”

Keith blinks a little, confused, and peers down at the console again. He sees it immediately— _how_ had he not noticed earlier?

There’s a cartridge slotted into it. A cartridge that reads _Adventure_.

“You seemed like you really wanted it.” Oh, Lance is going to start _explaining_ himself now, isn’t he? “And the way you talked about it, with your dad—I hope it’s not too, like, weird for me to get it for you, but— _hey_!”

Keith honestly hadn’t heard a word that Lance had said; his only goal had been to crush him in a hug, and in _that_ he seems to be succeeding. Both he and Lance topple to the floor, but Keith keeps clutching him tightly, and oh, there’s a wet spot on Lance’s shirt, is that from him?

“Are you _crying_?” Lance sounds more bemused than mocking, which means that Keith can keep doing whatever he’s doing—crying into Lance’s shoulder, apparently. “Dude, are you oka—”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Keith whispers, breathless and watery. He’d just been _talking,_ just reminiscing, and the fact that somebody had bothered to not only listen but _act_ on what he’d said is—is—is wonderful. Absolutely, utterly wonderful. “Thanks for listening. And getting this for me. Thank you.”

“N-No problem, Keith.” Lance raises a hesitant hand and starts stroking Keith’s back. “I’m glad you like it. _Really_ glad.”

“As touching as this is,” Pidge calls pointedly, breaking them both out of their own little bubble, “we have more gifts to get through, you know?”

Keith sighs and nods, leaning back from Lance and embarrassingly wiping at his damp face with his sleeve. Then, something overcomes him—he whisks forward and, quick as lightning, gives Lance a kiss on the cheek.

Everyone in the room, including Lance, gasps.

“Thank you,” Keith whispers a last time, and returns to his seat, blushing red. The eyes of everyone else follow him, but specifically Lance’s. He’s frozen in place.

“…You two can deal with that later,” Hunk pipes up awkwardly. He shoves a gift in Coran’s face. “Coran! You’re next.”

What on _earth_ had Keith just done?

* * *

It’s Christmas night, and most everyone else has gone to bed. Not Keith, though. Keith’s wide awake, staring at the little TV Pidge allowed him to borrow for the time being and navigating his tiny square avatar through a plethora of mazes, finding keys and evading dragons with laughably simple graphics.

And he is having the time of his _life_.

That’s about to end, though.

“Keith?”

A voice floats from behind him, and Keith startles and pulls himself out of the game, blinking confusedly. He turns around and finds—Lance.

Lance, who had been avoiding him this whole night. Lance, who is the reason Keith has been drinking definitely-spiked-with-alien-alcohol eggnog for the past hour or so as he plays his game. Lance, who’s cheek he kissed three hours earlier.

Lance.

“Hey,” he responds shortly, turning back toward the TV, already feeling embarrassment heat up his face. There’s no way Lance is here for any other reason than to talk about Keith’s earlier actions, especially at this hour, which is…terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

Lance is talking, though, and Keith should probably be listening rather than dreading it.

“You playing the game?” he asks, and his voice sounds like he’s smiling, which _does_ make Keith feel a little calmer. “How’s it going?”

“Good, I think.” Keith lets his little square rest, unsure if he’s actually able to pause this game. Clearly, he hasn’t tried to in the hours he’s been playing. “There’s not really a level system, so I have no idea how far I am though.”

“Rough.”

Lance settles next to him and stays quiet, so after a moment Keith starts playing again, not sure what else to do. They’re lit only by the (very hobbled-together with space junk, miscellaneous fabric, and weird Altean lights Coran found in the very back of the castleship) Christmas tree, the dim, glittery red and gold casting slightly strange shadows across the room and contrasting sharply with the blueish glow of Keith’s TV. Wrapping paper is littered across the floor, but none of the presents have been left, which Keith takes with relief as a sign that people actually liked them. It’s definitely _an atmosphere_ , and Keith’s a little bitter than it’s almost definitely eventually going to be broken by a weird, embarrassing, awkward conversation.

Whenever Lance decides to start talking, that is.

Why had he kissed Lance’s cheek in the first place? Keith’s been sifting through that moment over and over in his head—increasingly fuzzily as the spiked eggnog had started hitting his system, to be sure—and, for the life of him, he just can’t figure it out. It had just been what he wanted to do—it had felt like the _right_ thing to do, the right way to show his appreciation for Lance having done something so nice and special for him.

Would he have done it if it hadn’t been Lance who gave him the gift, though? No, of course not. It was because it was Lance that Keith felt compelled to kiss his cheek—that he felt compelled to tackle him to the ground in a hug unlike anything he’s used to giving, so forward and presumptuous and just…just really showing his heart on his sleeve.

Keith doesn’t do that. But with Lance, he does. And it has made things so, _so_ fucking weird, that Keith is sure he never will again.

“Look, Keith—” Lance sighs, and Keith braces himself. Here comes the conversation, at last. “About earlier…”

“It’s—I’m sorry,” Keith stumbles over his words, not sure what he’s meant to say but wanting to convey to Lance that nothing _has_ to change because of the kiss on the cheek, that he hadn’t meant anything by it (even if maybe he had). “It—It was a weird moment, okay, I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking.”

Lance knits his brows. “I’m not saying it was a bad thing, Keith,” he says, tilting his head ever so slightly. “I just—You know, I just wanted to see why you did it.”

“It’s _fine_ ,” Keith hisses, growing defensive now. “You can forget it ever happened, I don’t care, it was just a kiss on the cheek—”

“I don’t _want_ to forget it, Keith!”

At this, Keith draws up short and finally actually looks at Lance, holding his gaze and letting his confusion spell out clearly on his face. Lance balks a little, shuffling nervously where he sits.

“What does that mean?” Keith asks quietly. Lance swallows.

“Well, it—I liked that you liked my gift so much, and when you hugged me, a-and when you—when you kissed my cheek. I just wanted you to know that I didn’t think it was weird, or bad, or anything except, like, good. It was good. It was okay.”

Lance isn’t looking at Keith at all, now, but Keith can see the pinkish tint to his brown skin, even through the Christmas-light glow of the room and even through the barriers he’s got set up in his mind that normally prevent him from catching such details. And a thought—a very dangerous, objectively ridiculous thought that is almost definitely driven by eggnog and the sentimentality of Christmas—enters his head.

Is it possible that Lance has feelings for Keith just as Keith has feelings for him?

“That’s all I wanted to say,” Lance continues, blustering now that Keith isn’t saying anything. Keith observes him, gears working in his brain. “I’ll—I’ll leave you alone now.”

 _No!_ “Lance, wait—”

Just as Lance is crouching up to stand, Keith grabs him by the sleeve of his Christmas sweater and tugs him—a bit harder than he intended, apparently, because Lance stumbles back down with an aborted cry and knocks into Keith, jostling them both and tangling them together as Lance tries to keep from falling right into Keith’s lap.

Lance stares at him, wide-eyed and clearly not comprehending, and Keith—well, words have never been Keith’s thing, have they? So, he does the only thing he knows how to do.

He acts.

Keith surges forward, operating entirely on impulse and the fizzling, buzzing hope that Lance isn’t as averse to this concept as he’d previously thought. He surges forward, embers and sparks and flames, and kisses Lance.

Keith kisses Lance. And not a second later, Lance is pinning Keith to the ground and kissing back. _Hard._

“Is this my Christmas present?” Lance asks when they’ve both leaned back, panting. “Keith, if you’re giving me a joke gift I swear to _god_ —”

“I’m not giving you a gift at all!” Keith laughs, because he can’t help but feel deliriously elated when _Lance McClain_ not only kissed him back, but _pinned him to the ground to do it._ “I’m, like, expressing my feelings—”

“You’re so funny,” Lance says, and the adoring tone he uses is enough to take Keith’s breath away. His smile is as bright as the Christmas lights that surround them, as warm as freshly baked bread, as cheesy and happy as these dumb metaphors are. It plants a glow inside of Keith that slowly expands until it’s shining throughout Keith, lighting up his eyes and softening his features with joy. “So, you—So you like me? Like, like-like me?”

“Why else would I kiss you on the cheek? Of course that’s—that’s what I meant. That’s why I did it,” Keith says, trying hard to focus when he’s got a very excited, very _warm_ Lance hovering over him.

“Well, Merry Christmas to me,” Lance murmurs as if in awe, making Keith blush crimson. Lance leans down again, then, and kisses Keith once more. Delighted, Keith reciprocates, reaching up and wrapping his arms around Lance’s neck as well.

“Merry Christmas to you,” he says once they part, giving Lance a slow, indulgent smile. Lance returns it radiantly.

“We can keep celebrating over in my room, if you want, Kogane,” he suggests slyly, letting his eyes travel up and down Keith’s body, making Keith shiver with excitement. “I was Catholic, you know, so I know that this is definitely what Jesus would have wanted us to be doing on his birthday.”

Keith snorts and then dissolves into giggles. “If you say so.”

“I _do_.” Lance stands up and stretches his hand out, inviting Keith to take it. “I hope you’ll kiss me on more than just the cheek now, right?”

“I already have!” Keith counters, taking his hand. Once he’s pulled up, however, he leans close into Lance’s space and whispers, “I can kiss even more than your lips, too. If you want.”

“ _God_ , I’m lucky,” Lance sings with a love-drunk enthusiasm. “Lead the way, pretty boy.”

The two boys stumble their way kissing and laughing into Lance’s room, leaving the twinkling Christmas lights and Keith’s eggnog abandoned in the main room. That’s okay, though; they have plenty excuse to not clean up—they brought their best Christmas gift with them, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want more of me/my writing, feel free to visit me on [tumblr](https://klancey.tumblr.com/)!  
> also, if you'd like to support me, consider [buying me a coffee](https://ko-fi.com/renyoi)! thank you!


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